Paul Gauguin

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Description

Paul Gauguin
Masque d'une femme
Plaster with tan glaze
Height: 16in. (40.5cm)

Provenance

Ambroise Vollard, Paris (acquired from the artist)

Lucien Vollard, Paris

Edouard Jonas, Paris

Dalzell Hatfield, Los Angeles (1956)

Estate of Mrs. Dalzell Hatfield, Los Angeles (sold: Christie's, New York, February 13, 1986, lot 25)

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Literature

Christopher Gray, Sculpture and Ceramics of Paul Gauguin, Baltimore, 1963, no. 112, illustration of the wax version p. 244

Catalogue Note

In describing the present work, Gray writes, ``A plaster model of this mask is in a private collection in Paris. According to its owner, it was acquired from Vollard.''

Gray writes that the first version of this sculpture, which was executed in wax, probably would not have survived the trip back from Tahiti, and so he believes the wax was executed in France. He writes: ``the slightly non-European cast to the features suggests that it may have been done during the period between 1893 and 1895 in France. The features themselves have a certain similarity to Annah the `Javanese.' '' (Gray, op. cit., p. 244)

Vollard made at least one bronze cast (formerly in the collection of Walter P. Chrysler Jr.), probably made from the present plaster, and Dalzell Hatfield had an edition of three bronzes made from the present work in 1956.